...just wanted to make sure you're alive and well... you disappeared, and I was beginning to wonder/worry. Should I be forwarding any news to MS about activity issues?
RANT:Music of the X, Y, Z and DDR generations...posted May 9th 2007, 7:57PM
Mood: Annoyed
In this day and age, we live in a world of technology. Fads come and go faster than ever before - an internet meme is spread everywhere, and after three days it's 'old history'. There's nothing quite like the old interwebs...
My generation, class of 2006, graduating class of whenever my degree is done, came back in the day when people actually knew what the Macarena was. One of these days, you'll see a group of old people dancing it. Oh, wait - you already do.
Nineteen years of age, and already I feel like an old person. I'm supposed to know all the in stuff still, and here we are, in college, listening to Animaniacs and complaining. For those of you who have no idea who they are... think a cartoon variety show. The best of them.
I love step-by-number, aka DDR, just for the record. I love what it does, how it tranforms a room of standing people into a room of stamping people, and its music awareness. I love the remixes, and the addictiveness. But what I don't love is how your average fourteen-year-old Inuyasha/Naruto groupie has no idea where most of the songs come from.
Take this song. 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. Sound familiar? I SHOULD HOPE SO! It was the FIRST MUSIC VIDEO EVER to be aired on MTV! Oh, and for the record, 'We Will Rock You' was written by Queen, not House Boyz. So was Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are The Champions. Smooth Criminal was Michael Jackson, not Alien Ant Farm, or whoever it was that did that rock cover. Speed Over Beethoven really IS a Beethoven melody called Für Elise. It was NOT written by Bach. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik wasn't, either. That was Mozart.
What little I knew at that age was just depressing, I know... but not as sad as the most recent batch of kids. At least I knew who the following artists were, all of which I've received 'huh?'s over in the past week:
- Bob Dylan
- The Beatles
- Eric Clapton
- Willie Nelson (Patron Saint of Texas)
- Beethoven
- Tchaicovsky
- Bach
(Bay-tove-en and Bakh, not 'Beet-oven' and 'Batch', by the way)
- Queen
- Leonard Cohen
- Ozzy Osborne
- R.E.M.
- Simon And Garfunkel
Granted, most were before my time. Granted, I'm more informed (somehow) than most. But... how can you honestly believe that Video Killed the Radio Star was recent, that Cutie Honey was not an anime, that Never Ending Story didn't come from a movie based off of a book... both of which bore the same name? The B-52s are not a Japanese band, people. V for Extreme really IS based on a classical piece. YMCA stands for Young Men's Christian Association. Yes, it does stand for something. I did not make that up.
I can forgive not knowing what I was raised on - Gordon Bok, Eric Taylor, Stan Rogers, Leo Kottke. I just want to know where these... kids got their education, the TV? Oh wait...
(By the way, one little bit about MTV. Remember when it used to show music videos? WTF happened to that?)
Dance Dance Revolution does a lot of very happy techno/j-beat stuff. I happen to have 152 DDR-mix songs, including quite a few that were just shortened. But I still think this - if you like the song, then figure out where it came from. Don't you come telling me that cover bands wrote things. And you cannot call yourself a 'old-school gamer' without knowing what a D-20 system is, what Tron is, who (I swear) Optimus Prime is...
Most of this stuff was before my time, or just fading away as I entered the scene. I know that. But at least I know what it is I missed.
My fellow otaku: Is this really what we want to become? Is this what anime fans will be in the future? Please, Gaians... please, chatroomers, Kenshinians, Furcadians, FFnetters... show some sign of upper brain activity. It can't all have died by now - I know video games are supposed to make you not think, but they're better than random TV. Anime is good, and doesn't count as random TV unless it's Yu-Gi-Oh-No!, Zatch Hell! Beyblade (I shall take over the world with magical tops?) or the like.
I know that there are intelligent people out there. I've met them. It's just that increasingly so all I meet are random fangirls/boys who continually assign me the wrong gender entirely, because everyone knows girls are all hyper, high-pitched, and - oh, wait - that's a stereotype from anime, too! At least the more mainstream stuff. Oh, help me! INUYASHA, HELP! ...make my ears bleed, why don't'cha?
That said, I'll shut up on the topic. I just had to rant a little... ye Gods, guys - how can you be that uninformed?
One final thing: I'm going to go to A-kon this year; I'll be dressed as Rem from Death Note, if I can get the costume done in time. If you're attending, feel free to say hey.
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